Job Holds On

“Isn’t God high in the heavens? Look how high the farthest stars are! But you say, ‘What does God know? Can he judge through such darkness? Thick clouds hide him, so he can’t see as he walks on the dome of the sky.’ Will you keep to the old path that wicked men walked, who were snatched away before their time, whose foundations were washed away by a flood? They said to God, ‘Leave us alone! What can the Almighty do for us?’ Yet he was the one who filled their houses with good things. I want nothing to do with the plans of the wicked. The righteous see their ruin and are glad; the innocent laugh at them and say, ‘Our enemies are destroyed, and fire has burned up what they left behind.’

“Now make peace with God and get to know him, and good things will come to you. Accept his teaching and store up his words in your heart. If you return to the Almighty, you will be built up again, if you put evil far from your tents. Lay your treasure in the dust, the gold of Ophir among the stones of the streams, and the Almighty will be your treasure and your finest silver. Then you will delight in the Almighty and lift your face to God. You will pray to him, and he will hear you, and you will keep your promises. Whatever you decide will be done, and light will shine on your path. When people are brought down, you will say, ‘Be lifted up!’ and he will save the humble. He will rescue even someone who is not innocent, because your hands are clean.”

“But if I go east, he is not there. If I go west, I can’t find him. When he is at work in the north, I can’t see him; when he turns to the south, I don’t catch a glimpse of him. But he knows the way I take; when he has tested me, I will come out like gold. My feet have followed his steps closely; I have kept to his way and not turned aside. I have not turned away from the commands of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread. But he stands alone, and who can stop him? He does whatever he wants. He will carry out what he has planned for me, and he has many such plans. That is why I am terrified in his presence; when I think about it, I am afraid of him. God has made my heart weak; the Almighty has terrified me, because I was not cut off before the darkness came, and he did not hide the thick darkness from my face.

“Some rebel against the light. They don’t know its ways or stay on its paths. The murderer gets up at dawn and kills the poor and needy; at night he is like a thief. The man who sleeps with another man’s wife waits for twilight, thinking, ‘No one will see me,’ and he hides his face. In the dark, thieves break into houses; by day they shut themselves in. They don’t know the light. For all of them, morning is like deep darkness; they know the terrors of the dark well.

“They are like foam on the water; their share of the land is cursed, and they never take the road to the vineyards. As heat and drought snatch away melted snow, so Sheol snatches away those who have sinned. Their mothers forget them, and worms feast on them; they are remembered no more, and wickedness is broken like a tree. They prey on the childless woman and show no kindness to the widow. Yet God keeps the mighty alive by his power; they rise up when they had given up hope of living. He lets them feel secure, and they rely on it, but his eyes are on their ways. They are lifted up for a little while, and then they are gone; they are brought low and gathered up like everyone else, cut off like heads of grain. If this is not so, who can prove me a liar and show that my words are worth nothing?”

Then Job answered. “What a help you are to someone with no strength! How you have saved the arm that has no power! What advice you have given to someone with no wisdom, and what great insight you have shown! Who did you speak these words to? Whose spirit came out of you?

“The spirits of the dead tremble, those beneath the waters and all who live there. Sheol lies naked before God, and Abaddon has no covering. He stretches out the north over empty space and hangs the earth on nothing. He wraps up the waters in his thick clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their weight. He covers the face of his throne and spreads his cloud over it. He has marked out a boundary on the surface of the waters, at the boundary between light and darkness. The pillars of heaven tremble, astonished at his rebuke. By his power he stirs up the sea, and by his understanding he struck down Rahab. By his Spirit the skies are made beautiful; his hand pierced the swift serpent. And these are only the edges of his ways. How faint a whisper we hear of him! Who then can understand the thunder of his power?”

“May my enemy be treated like the wicked, and whoever rises up against me like the unrighteous. For what hope does the godless have when God cuts him off and takes away his life? Will God hear his cry when trouble comes on him? Will he find joy in the Almighty and call on God at all times? I will teach you about God’s power; I will not hide what the Almighty does. You have all seen it yourselves. So why do you talk such nonsense?

“This is what God gives the wicked, the inheritance cruel men receive from the Almighty. However many children they have, the sword will take them, and their descendants will never have enough to eat. Those who are left will die and be buried, and their widows will not weep for them. Though they pile up silver like dust and clothes like heaps of clay, the righteous will wear the clothes, and the innocent will divide the silver. The houses they build are as flimsy as a moth’s cocoon, like a watchman’s hut. They lie down rich, but never again; they open their eyes, and they are gone. Terrors sweep over them like a flood; a storm carries them off in the night. The east wind lifts them up, and they are gone; it sweeps them from their place. It hurls itself at them without mercy as they try to flee from his hand. People clap their hands at them to mock them and hiss them out of their place.

“But where can wisdom be found? Where does understanding live? No one knows its worth; it is not found in the land of the living. The deep ocean says, ‘It isn’t in me.’ The sea says, ‘It isn’t with me.’ It cannot be bought with gold, and its price cannot be weighed out in silver. It cannot be bought with the gold of Ophir, with precious onyx or sapphire. Gold and glass can’t compare with it, and it can’t be traded for jewels of fine gold. Coral and crystal are not worth mentioning; the price of wisdom is beyond rubies. The topaz of Ethiopia can’t compare with it; it can’t be bought with pure gold. Where then does wisdom come from? Where does understanding live? It is hidden from the eyes of every living thing, concealed even from the birds of the sky. Destruction and Death say, ‘We have heard only a rumor of it.’

“God understands the way to it, and he knows where it lives. For he looks to the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens. When he set the force of the wind and measured out the waters, when he made a law for the rain and a path for the thunder’s lightning, then he looked at wisdom and declared it; he set it in place and searched it out. And he said to human beings, ‘Look, to fear the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding.’”

“Everyone who heard me spoke well of me, and everyone who saw me praised me, because I rescued the poor who cried for help and the orphan who had no one to help him. People who were dying blessed me, and I made the widow’s heart sing for joy. I put on righteousness like clothing; justice was my robe and my crown. I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame. I was a father to the needy, and I looked into the cases of strangers. I broke the jaws of the wicked and snatched their victims from their teeth.

“I thought, ‘I will die in my own home, after days as many as the grains of sand. My roots reach the water, and the dew lies all night on my branches. My honor will always be fresh, and my bow always new in my hand.’ People listened to me and waited in silence for my advice. After I spoke, they had nothing more to say; my words settled on them. They waited for me as for rain and drank in my words like spring showers. When they had lost confidence, I smiled at them, and they didn’t turn away from the light of my face. I chose the way for them and sat as their chief. I lived like a king among his troops, like one who comforts mourners.

“But now younger men mock me, men whose fathers I would not have put with my sheepdogs. What use was their strength to me? Their strength was gone. Thin from hunger and famine, they gnawed the dry ground in the dark, desolate wasteland. They picked salt plants among the bushes and ate the roots of broom trees. They were driven out from among people, who shouted at them as if they were thieves, so they had to live in frightening ravines, in holes in the ground and in the rocks. They brayed among the bushes and huddled under the nettles. They were children of fools, children of wicked men, whipped out of the land. And now they make songs about me; I have become a joke to them. They hate me and keep their distance, and they don’t hesitate to spit in my face. Because he has untied his cord and made me suffer, they throw off all restraint in front of me. On my right the mob rises up; they trip my feet and build ramps to attack me. They break up my path and push me toward ruin, without anyone’s help. They come at me as through a wide gap in a wall, rolling in among the ruins. Terrors overwhelm me; my honor is blown away like the wind, and my safety vanishes like a cloud.

“Now my life is draining out of me; days of suffering have seized me. At night pain pierces my bones, and the pain that gnaws at me never rests. My clothes are pulled out of shape by great force; they bind me like the collar of my shirt. He has thrown me into the mud, and I have become like dust and ashes. I cry out to you, God, but you don’t answer me; I stand up, and you only look at me. You have turned cruel toward me; you attack me with the strength of your hand. You lift me up on the wind and drive me along; you make me melt away in the storm. I know you will bring me to death, to the place where all the living are going.

“Yet doesn’t someone who is falling reach out a hand? Doesn’t someone in trouble cry for help? Didn’t I weep for those in trouble? Didn’t I grieve for the poor? Yet when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, darkness came. My heart is troubled and never rests; days of suffering have come on me. I walk around in mourning, without sunlight; I stand up in the assembly and cry for help. I have become a brother to jackals and a companion of ostriches. My skin turns black and peels, and my bones burn with heat. My harp is tuned to mourning, and my flute to the sound of weeping.

“If my heart has been drawn to another man’s wife, and I have waited at my neighbor’s door for my chance, then let my wife grind grain for another man, and let other men sleep with her. That would be a shameful crime, a sin for the judges to punish. It would be a fire that burns all the way to destruction and roots out everything I have. If I have refused justice to my male or female servants when they had a complaint against me, what will I do when God rises up to judge? What will I answer when he questions me? Didn’t the same God who made me in the womb make them? Didn’t the same one form us both before we were born?

“Have I refused the poor what they needed, or let the widow’s eyes grow tired with waiting? Have I eaten my food alone, without sharing it with the orphan? No; from my youth the orphan grew up with me as if I were his father, and I have guided the widow since I was born. Have I seen anyone dying for lack of clothes, or a needy person without a coat, and not warmed him with the wool of my sheep, so that he blessed me from his heart? Have I raised my hand against an orphan because I knew I had friends at the city gate? If I have done any of these things, then let my shoulder fall from its socket and my arm be broken off at the joint. For disaster from God terrifies me, and before his greatness I can do nothing.

“Have I put my hope in gold, or said to fine gold, ‘You are my security’? Have I rejoiced because my wealth was great and my hands had gained so much? Have I looked at the shining sun or the moon moving in splendor, and been secretly drawn to worship them, blowing them a kiss? That too would be a sin for the judges to punish, because I would have denied God above. Have I been glad when my enemy was ruined, or celebrated when trouble came to him? I have not let my mouth sin by calling down a curse on his life. The people of my household have always said, ‘Who hasn’t had his fill of Job’s food?’ No stranger had to spend the night in the street; I opened my door to travelers. Have I covered up my wrongs like Adam, hiding my guilt in my heart? Was I so afraid of the crowd, so terrified of the scorn of families, that I kept quiet and would not go out the door?

“If only someone would hear me! Look, here is my signature! Let the Almighty answer me! Let my accuser write out the charges against me! I would carry them on my shoulder; I would put them on like a crown. I would tell him every step I have taken; I would come before him like a prince.

“If my land cries out against me and its furrows weep together, if I have eaten its crops without paying for them or caused the death of its owners, then let thorns grow instead of wheat and weeds instead of barley.” That was the end of Job’s words.